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Microsoft Surface Pro Release Date and Retail Availability Announced

Microsoft has kept its promise, give or take an extra week. The firm has announced that the Surface Pro — the Intel Core i5 and full Windows 8 Pro version of its Surface line — will launch in the United States and Canada on February 9, 2013.

Microsoft’s design language from the Surface RT carries over to the Surface Pro, but internally there are some crucial upgrades. First is the machine’s non-ARM architecture, meaning it will run all Windows legacy apps. Unlike Windows RT, the Surface Pro ships with Windows 8 Pro installed, lending it more usability for consumers looking for a true tablet/laptop hybrid.

The Surface Pro will retail beginning at $899 for the 64GB model, and include a Surface pen with technology that ignores accidental palm touches. Consumers will be able to purchase the machine at Microsoftstore.com, Best Buy, Staples, and all Microsoft retail stores.

Microsoft has also expanded retail availability of the original Surface RT to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and select other countries.

I praised the Surface RT for being a wonderful reference design and for boasting one of the best displays on the market. If not for the lackluster software library, it would have become my primary tablet. This is one hurdle the Surface Pro won’t be faced with.

Price may be a sticking point for some consumers, however. $899 buys you just the 64GB tablet; another $119 or so nets you the soft Touch Cover or more traditional Type Cover. Consider that you’re effectively buying an ultrabook with a detachable tablet, though, and that price becomes much easier to swallow.

That being said, I question Microsoft’s decision to not bundle one of the keyboard variants in their Surface Pro SKU. I can’t think of a demographic wanting to purchase a standalone tablet for $899, when for just over $1000 the value proposition of an ultrabook/tablet hybrid seems so much more tantalizing. The true utility of the Surface model isn’t realized until integrating it with the snap-on keyboards.

Have you been holding out for the Pro over the Surface RT? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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I bought my wife the Surface RT so she could use it for school. I was very impressed with the unit and initially we loved it. When it came to her needing to use it for school it didnt work out nearly as nice. She had an ebook that required a certain website to login to, and it was all done via Flash. I could not edit enough of RT to get it to work, nor could the Microsoft store employees. They were great enough to allow the return of the RT even tho we were past the 14 days of the normal return period. We definitely plan on purchasing the PRO as soon as I can.

Of course this is the inevitable end of ultrabooks. IMHO they never did have a market. They were devices that halfway filled a need that laptops and tablets could not. Now, enter the Surface Pro. Finally a product that does what most real computer users have done for decades, work. Play is great, but work is how people afford to play. So I predict that the sales of this tablet and the inevitable cheaper better versions to follow will force Android to become the real Linux it was meant to be, iOS to become the real MacOS it will have to be, and Windows 8 and beyond to succeed as an OS finally. Microsoft is the only major player out there that realizes that people don’t really want their desktop anymore, or their laptop for that matter. People are only holding on to those because they have had no other viable alternative if they want to to have everything they have always had. This is the first real step in eliminating the other devices once and for all.

“Play is great, but work is how people afford to play.” Well said, Brant. I just wish Microsoft’s pricing of the Surface line was a shade cheaper so that a larger audience could understand what this forward-thinking hardware design is all about. And I’m standing fast about MS needing to have a keyboard/Surface Pro bundle. I also agree with you that Microsoft is playing the long game, here.

Really looking forward to the pro, have been holding out as I need the legacy support to run graphics programs on it such as illustrator/photoshop. Hopefully it can hadle it otherwise I might have to consider the samsung/asus alternatives that will have i7 and possibly more ram though the pen input as well as palm rejection of the surface is a really nice value add.

Really excited for the Pro! I would go out and get the RT right now, but I’m enticed by the ability to have a tablet capable of everything a laptop is! Finally! Just in time for my birthday too, so happy birthday me!

I also wonder why so many people are complaining about the price of the Surface Pro. As a long time PC User and after being gouged by Apple for several high-end iPads that don’t come close to being useful for content creation I’ll gladly lay down the reasonable price that Microsoft has set for the 128 Gb. version of the Surface Pro.

I, as a software developer on the Windows platform, want Microsoft to be successful and I think that this price point will allow them to be successful. It’s a good price for me and for Microsoft. A win-win situation as far as I see.

I was so thrilled to see MS finally get in the game and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the Surface RT. However, I returned it within the 14 day period as I realized the drawback of less than decent app marketplace. Since then, I have been eagerly awaiting the Surface Pro but am extremely disappointed with the pricing. Although I love the flexibility of a tablet, ASUS and some others have ultrabooks at half the price. And I am thinking if the (modest) convenience is worth the extra $600 – afterall an 11-inch touchscreen ultrabook can almost fill that need. I think the pricing is a big misstep from MS, which will keep it from being a true game changer.